


It's easier not to love him

by privateuytrewiuytrew124



Category: S.W.A.T. (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Cannon compliant, Chris and Street are in love, Chris is in Denial, F/M, Luca is an Icon and Great Friend, Pining, Street is an Idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:21:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26965846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/privateuytrewiuytrew124/pseuds/privateuytrewiuytrew124
Summary: But she wasn’t in love with him. Being in love with a man like that was a loaded thing, a thing she couldn’t afford. So she ducked and dodged and plowed through charged moments, desperate to maintain the fragile balance they’d managed.
Relationships: christina "chris" alonso/jim street
Kudos: 51





	It's easier not to love him

Chris loved Street. Of course she did. She loved the whole team, and he was her best friend. So of course she loved him, but she wasn’t _in love_ with him.

She’d helped set him up on dates, for christsake. Had curated his profile specifically to attract someone he’d like long term. She’d been the one to swipe right on the woman who actually seemed like she’d be right for him --the one with the motorcycle and the gorgeous curling hair and the pretty smile. And when the woman --God, Chris didn’t even know her name, had avoided learning it for some inexplicable reason-- arrived and talked bikes and Street’s eyes lit up, Chris thought _there. Proof the two of you would never work. You have no idea what they’re even talking about._

As if she needed proof. As if Street were anything more than a friend. And yet, when the woman told her that the new profile, the one Chris had made for him, was the reason she swiped right on Street, the taste of success sat bitterly on Chris’s tongue.

Chris had gone to Mexico, and Street’s anxiety had been palpable. He’d paced as she packed, and blushed when she called him out on it. The pink of his cheeks left him pretty and vulnerable.

“I just don’t like the idea of you being somewhere where I can’t have your back,” He said, shrugging.

Now she wanted to blush. Instead, she reached out and squeezed his hand. Once. It felt abruptly charged. “I’ll be okay,” she said, dropping his hand. Her fingertips felt electrified. “And you’ll be working the case on this end, so you’ll still have my back, even if we aren’t seeing each other. Okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” He smiled wryly. “Just be careful, please. I can only take so much stress.”

“I'm always careful."

So yeah, she cared about him. She liked the way his eyes lit up when he saw her. Liked his smile, the soft dimples that she made fun of in a desperate attempt to ignore the things they did to her.

God, the things they did to her.

But she wasn’t in love.

Basic attraction is one thing. Chris wasn’t afraid to admit that Street was hot --she wasn’t blind. But he was also cocky, stubborn, loud. Loyal. Too loyal, maybe. She watched him throw everything away for his mother. Watched him claw his way out of the hole that woman kept trying to suck him into. Did her best to help pull him out. But he just kept going back. Kept helping and forgiving and loving his mother when all she did was take and take and take.

It hurt to watch.

“She gave up everything for me,” Street mumbled one night, quiet and guilty. “I’ll always owe her.”

“You don’t owe her anything,” Chris said. Anger simmered low in her stomach. At Street’s mother, for using him, now and when he’d been a child. At his father, for lingering in the way Street would flinch sometimes when someone clapped him on the shoulder and he wasn’t paying attention, or jump when a locker slammed too loudly. At everyone who had seen a frightened, angry little boy and looked at him as a problem instead of someone desperate for help. And maybe it was unfair to hate his mother so much -- she’d been desperate too, trapped with a man who’d been violent and cruel. But it was hard to muster up much sympathy for her when Street looked so broken. “What she did to you was terrible.”

“She didn’t have a choice.”

 _Of course she had a choice,_ scorched Chris’s tongue, but she bit the words back. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Street. He leaned into her immediately, pressing his cheek into her shoulder. Her hands curled into his hair without her even registering it, and he relaxed into her touch as she moved her fingers soothingly.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” She said softly.

“It’s okay.”

They sat like that for a long time.

He went down once, on a call. Caught a bullet to the chest and crashed backwards through a second story window. Chris’s heart constricted with each wheezing breath that echoed through the comms until it was wound so tight she could barely move. Fear and worry and an eternal moment of absolute certainty that she would never hear his laugh again ricocheted through her chest.

“It caught my vest, I’m good,” Street finally forced out, voice hoarse.

He was talking to the whole team, but the sound of his voice in her ear felt personal. She let out a long, slow breath and ignored the look Deacon shot her.

“Get to cover if you can,” Hondo said, relief evident in his gruff order.

Hondo forced him to go to the hospital once the house was cleared, just in case, and based on the looks on everyone’s faces --the way Luca kept a hand on Street’s shoulder, Tan’s refusal to look away for more than a few moments-- Chris knew she wasn’t the only one who’d been shaken up. Deacon pulled him into a gentle but lightning-quick hug that left Street blushing. He clearly hadn’t expected them to be so worried about him.

When he changed out at the end of the day they poked fun at the livid twin bruises on his chest and back, one where the bullet had hit his vest and the other where he’d slammed his back into a buckle of his gear when he’d hit the ground. But Chris couldn’t help but wince at the dark purple. Couldn’t stop herself from imagining how much worse it could have been. He brushed it off, but she’d walked in on him and Hondo talking in the locker room. Had seen the look on both of their faces --the furrow of Hondo’s brow, the unsure twist of Street’s lips. It had all of the markings of a conversation that was too emotional for them to ever admit to. She was glad. Hondo and Street cared so much about each other, but it was hard for them to admit it sometimes.

They all bought Street a round that night --liquored him up enough that Chris had to help Luca drag him to his car. She ended up going home with them and crashing, pushing away intrusive thoughts the next morning of Street’s fingers curled around her wrist, pulling her against him as she and Luca had settled him on his bed.

Luca had laughed. “He doesn’t try that with me, you know. I feel like I should be jealous.”

“Give me the word and I’m yours, baby,” Street had mumbled back, a sloppy grin pulling his lips up as he looked at Luca hazily. Chris had pushed herself up from where she was half-sprawled against his chest and he’d whined, wrapping his arms around her more tightly. “Noo, you’re so warm.”

She had blushed, but she’d been too drunk to feel truly embarrassed. Luca had just snorted and pulled Street’s shoes off, stumbling slightly as Street laughed. Chris could feel the vibrations of his body against hers, and she could admit, at least to herself, in the half-lit room with too much liquor in her system, that she didn’t want to get up.

So she didn’t.

Street had convinced Luca to crawl onto the bed with them, his big, pleading eyes all the more convincing with everyone drunk and the image of him crashing through a window still fresh in their minds, and they’d all fallen asleep soon after. Chris woke up first, mouth dry and head pounding. She was curled into Street’s side, face tucked into the crook of his neck. His steady breathing tickled her forehead. Luca was snoring softly on Street’s other side, limbs sprawled wide. She untangled herself quietly, but Street’s eyes fluttered open.

“Chris?”

She shushed him. “Go back to sleep. I’ll make breakfast.”

He hummed quietly and burrowed his face into the pillow where her head had been a moment before, clearly not fully awake. “Smells like you,” He murmured, and he was out before she could respond.

It all felt abruptly domestic. His sleep-mussed hair, the drowsy smile he’d flashed her as he closed his eyes, the way she knew where he and Luca kept their pans. She’d snatched a shirt from his closet, unwilling to stay in the uncomfortable top she’d worn the night before and somehow managed to sleep in, and she brought the collar to her nose as she grabbed a carton of eggs.

_Smells like him._

But she wasn’t in love with him. Being in love with a man like that was a loaded thing, a thing she couldn’t afford. So she ducked and dodged and plowed through charged moments, desperate to maintain the fragile balance they’d managed.

And then they kissed.

They were both drunk and lost, grasping for a handhold, and they’d caught each other. His lips were soft. Wanting. The firm pressure unraveled something in her chest, quieting the swirling thoughts in her head, the clawing, unspecific anxiety that she’d been drowning in. Her hands curled into the leather of his jacket as he pressed her more tightly against his body. _Finally,_ something inside her breathed, _finally._

She pushed him away.

Street stared at her, dazed. His lips were parted slightly, kiss-swollen and tempting. Chris looked away. She felt unsteady, and not just because of the liquor that now felt as if it were burning in her chest.

She stood abruptly. “I should go.”

“Chris, wait-” Hurt cut clearly across his face. The dazed look was quickly fading, and his eyes were bright with emotions she was terrified to look at too closely. He opened and closed his mouth, clearly at a loss. And goddamn it, she wanted to sit back down. To fold herself into his arms and breath in his cologne. To let him press his hands against her waist. But she didn't. She couldn't

“I’ll see you at work, Street.”

She went straight to Kira and Leo, but it felt more like running away from something than to something. She told Street she was moving in with them, that she couldn’t be his friend anymore, and the look on his face left her breathless with regret.

She loved him.

She was in love with him.

Fuck.


End file.
